Database assignment

The database assigned that Mr. Bevill introduced is a useful method when searching for a topic initially. For practice, I searched using the Web of Science and Sustainability Science Abstracts databases for my designated major in chemistry for Green Chemistry and Clean renewable energy sources. Surprisingly, I found many articles related to my search category in the recent publication year of 2011. The reason for this cause is mostly likely the influence that President Obama had proposed a Balanced Approach for the American society by eliminating the fiscal deficit and in the meantime investing for our future into education and clean energy. According to his proposed budget, the government is proposing to provide $29.5 billion for the Department of Energy sector in clean energy, nuclear security and research/development. Not only that is an advantage for the society in many beneficial ways, but it also provides more funding for my dad's job at the ORNL to develop these new clean energy sources. By all means, the database search provided excellent sources for technical papers written by scientists in order to promote new ideas and methods for clean energy development. I am proud that the new America is rising and advancing in order to remain in the competition with other countries around the world.

Comedy perspective of an apocalyptic event.

The film Dr. Strangelove portrayed a satirized point of view of an apocalyptic event during the cold war which in this case is nuclear warfare. Briefly the film is about on of the United States Air Force who orders a first strike nuclear war attack on the Soviet Union. There were scenes that caught my attention such as when a group of air force soldiers were persistent to make an attack on the cobalt mine due to plan R being initiated by Ripper. What is interesting is one of the soldiers had to manually set the opening doors of the nuclear missiles and when the doors opened, he sat on the H bomb like riding it on a cowboy style when the bomb exploded on land. The film has effectively conveyed the point of a possible apocalyptic event of a nuclear warfare. I believe that there was miscommunication between the president of the US and Russian president. According to the big board, it was obvious that there were no more air force planes planning to attack the Soviet Union because of retreat, but only one plane did not retreat. It is predicted that after the bombing the Soviet Union, the president would be in rage, or it is assumed that after the president notified him with a friendly call, there will be no future plans of war.

Comparing it to the novel our group has to read which is the Windup Girl, Dr. Strangelove talks about the possible nuclear warfare apocalypse while the Windup Girl is about the futuristic 23rd century environmental problems like global warming and genetically altered food sources. I believe realistically that a nuclear warefare exists when peace is disrupted due to governmental problems with its people within the country and conflict with neighboring countries or even allies. Other times when the world is trying to achieve peace, no signs of nuclear warfare is necessary that can cause deaths of many civilians and innocent people.

The future of the 23rd century.

The Windup Girl was the book that caught my eye when the genre is settled in the 23rd century. Sources of nonrenewable energy has been depleted. During this era, biotechnology and genetic modification engineering is required for the production of food. Companies like AgriGen, PurCal, RedStar are mentioned in the book control food production through "genehacked" seeds and use bioterrorism and private armies and economic hitmen to create markets for their products.  I find this fascinating and wished to live in that era. Who knows how the way of life will be like then. The downside is the catastrophies of illness and plagues originated from genetically modified crops and mutant pests causes deaths to the population. 


I am very intrigued by the synopsis of the book and cannot wait to get started reading. I hope they make a movie real soon about this because due to the current economic crisis and resources demands, the world needs to starting developing new sources of energy sources.

Start of the Major I-Search Assignment

For this post, I will discuss about what I have gathered so far for the upcoming I-Search essay paper that will be due February 28. We were required to select five probable topics from the Slate article and discuss each if we should continue our research into the subjects. For my five probable causes I selected:

1. China Unloads US Treasuries
2. Peak Oil
3. December 21, 2012
4. Asteroid Impacts
5. Infectious Diseases

From these five I have narrowed it down to two topics. The first three seemed improbable to occur, therefore I decided to continue with Asteroid Impacts and Infectious Diseases. For Asteroid Impacts, I did say that there is a chance for that kind of impact to occur according to history during the Dinosaur Age, where there was a massive crater that could have caused the mass extinction of the planet. I then did say that this topic would most likely not occur, because we could prevent such an impact such as sending a satellite into space and with a mild impact with the asteroid, this leads to redirecting the asteroids path.

From then on I have narrowed down to my last and final cause, Infectious Diseases. What if there was a disease that was very severe causing high fever or instantaneous growth of cancer or super AIDS, and spread throughout the whole world just by coming in contact with the person by a handshake? How will be able to prevent this disease before it eliminates humanity? According to the past, there have been severe outbreaks such as the Black Death in Europe in the past centuries which wiped out 25 to 75 million Europeans. What if there was a virus or diseases that was twice or triple severe than the Black Death? All of humanity would have to be remain no contact with anyone, including close family members. This could lead to the isolation of human beings, remaining no contact with anyone, which is considerably difficult for people who need to come close with other people. Other questions would involve will there be vaccinations to cure this diseases in time? Are there ways to prevent from getting affected? Will the virus mutate to an ultra-pathogenic strain?

So far I have completed parts I, II, and III. Part I consist of what I know so far about the subjects, part II consist of what I want to know about the subjects, and part III is the presentation, which every class member has presented their argument. The next step is to complete the rest of the parts. The meat of the paper will be part IV, which is the ultimate research of the I-Search paper. From there I will gather resources from interviewing professional people in the field who have expertise and ideas of answering my questions. Secondly I will create a survey for people to take relating to Infectious Diseases. And of course the traditional book and internet database research in the library and online. From that point on I will see how my research goes and keep you guys updated. Please feel free to leave comments and feedback about what is the next step I should proceed or suggestions.

Interesting moments in The Road

In the novel The Road by Cormac Mccarthy, I find it appalling when the author vividly describes every detail of what exactly is going on in the scenes. Apparently I find the beginning paragraph of the novel very interesting, because it describes a dream that man has of wonders imaging the apocalyptic world they are in. I noticed that the author uses the word 'gray' simultaneously throughout the story. This mentioning of gray constantly is describing the feel of constancy that the apocalyptic world is alive. The author maintains the feel and does not lose the sense that the world does not exist anymore. According to line 2 in first paragraph, "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before." This gives the reader a sense of darkness and eeriness. in line 8, "Deep stone flues where the water dripped and sang," describes there is pure silence and where the dripping of water was the sound of existence. In line 9, "Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth, and the hours and the days of it, and the years without cease," mentions the world remains in silence and peace with no other living existence exist besides the father and the son. Coming to a conclusion, reading the novel currently fascinates me. The words he uses has poetic deep meanings behind it. I look forward to continue to read more about it.

Beginning of the new semester! English 102!

English 102..... the new start of a new semester. I have enjoyed English 101 which was the beginning for Rhetoric Arguments. Now starting English 102 with Bevill, I am pleased that I have selected The Inquiry to the Understandings of The Apocalypse. As I am prepared to write about this subject, research, and findings, English composition is necessary for my major.

The Apocalypse, so far what I know about it briefly is that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. I want to say that this is just theoretical statement, but there are many reasons to support the possible effects that cause to lead up to this catastrophic event. For my first research essay which is the I-Search, we are required to select up to five possible reasons that lead up to an Apocalyptic event. I am very excited to find out more about what can cause this to occur. Although this paper takes much research and dedication, I am shooting for an A+ on this first paper. We will see how everything goes and will keep updates on how the paper is going. So far I have written the first couple of parts of this paper: The What I know, The What I Want to know, and The presentation for my possible reasons.

Overall that was just my introduction, the central meat of this blog is to describe the summary of one of the Required Reading Texts that we will  go over in class. The selected readings are to enhance our understandings of the Apocalyptic events. Each of the authors have a perspective on how the world might end in doom. The one book that interests me the most is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The story describes about that an Apocalyptic event had occurred leaving a father and his young son surviving. They travel long distances to the South Coast to find any means of survival. At the end the father dies of illness leaving the son behind. Eventually the son finds another surviving family in the South Coast and life of humanity begins once again.

I am excited to see how this class will proceed on, I am enjoying Mr. Bevill teaching and sharing similar interests. I look forward to a wonderful semester.